EDITORIAL - Slapped to death

The Family Code of the Philippines, passed over three decades ago, prohibits the use of corporal punishment in both public and private schools. By now, this prohibition should be ingrained in all teachers.

So it’s a dismaying tragedy that a fifth grade student is dead, allegedly following physical maltreatment by his teacher, who now faces a criminal complaint for homicide.

Grieving relatives of the 14-year-old boy said he had narrated how, on the morning of Sept. 20, his teacher at the Peñafrancia Spring Valley Elementary School in Barangay Cupang, Antipolo City, irked by the noise being made by his classmates, had grabbed him by the collar, pulled his hair and slapped him so hard his ears rang. The story was corroborated by at least one of the classmates.

The boy’s mother, Elena Minggoy, said her son still managed to attend school for three days. On Sept. 26, however, the boy began experiencing headaches and dizziness and started vomiting. He was rushed to a hospital in Marikina where he fell into a coma. Following his death due to brain hemorrhage on Monday, Minggoy said brain scans showed that a blood vessel had ruptured in the boy’s brain.

A report yesterday said the teacher, identified by the police as Mirasol Sison, claimed she merely gave the victim a mild slap. Any form of physical violence against students, however, is prohibited. Police said they are readying charges of homicide in relation to Republic Act 7610, the Special Protection of Children Against Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act, against Mirasol, who has gone on leave.

There are two key objectives in this investigation: to give justice to the boy, and to ensure that this type of violence will not be repeated in the country’s learning institutions. Philippine education is in a sorry state as it is without grade school students worrying about corporal punishment and other forms of abuse at the hands of their teachers.